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Dave Macfee writes:
You guys are great!
I've been holding a couple of parts for months, wanting to try some bending.
Then this nice rocker came in needing a very simple bent piece.
This discussion gave me the little push I needed.
Here is a picture of a crude rig we built using one of those propane fired
outdoor cookers and leftover material from our dust collection installation.
We made our form just as described by Master LaRoque,
'cept we didn't drill the joint holes prior to bending.
It worked just like he said. "easy to do it"
I will add it was not only easy, but FUN.
If you've got the chamber ready to go, all you need is your part
and the form. For these parts, readying the form was minimal time.
1/2 hour at most. The wood was in the steam chamber for apx
2-3 hrs while we are putting time in on other projects.
We did make an extra piece for each part we needed, which
turned out to be a good idea. We discovered one piece, after
turning, exposed a funky grain direction right on the bend.
This one broke when we tried to bend it.
Another benefit of the extra part is that it lets you make an adjustment
to your form if the first one doesn't bend just the way you want.
We did find that overbending the part a little was necessary
to counter the spring-back. We just kinda guessed at how much
to overbend and with 2 shots at it, we ended up
with a very close match to the original bend.
I nominate Bucky and LaRoque for a wood bending seminar at GroopShop II
Dave Macfee
KS
